Seven months after announcing plans to take up where Microsoft left off with its Windows Longhorn client development, a group of members of the Joejoe.org site have built a working prototype of what they're calling 'Longhorn Reloaded'. Earlier this week, the Longhorn Reloaded developers and testers posted for download Milestone 1 of Longhorn Reloaded. "Longhorn Reloaded is a Project dedicated to the revival of the Operating System known as Code Name 'Longhorn'. To put the projects aims simply, we aim to finish off what Microsoft started before the operating system was canceled. It is a modification of Windows 6.0.4074, which was originally released during the 2004 Windows Hardware Engineers Conference," explained the Longhorn Reloaded team on the Joejoe Web site.

We arguably found the first Darwin release, and other tid-bits scattered around, old Developer CDs [which are cool as hell] and the Apple site was the most help, but they had "cleaned up" after themselves real well™.
We got former Gurus that practically made the sign of the cross as they backed away from us, all the time wishing us "luck".
I theorized, privately, we'd run into crown jewels territory by the difficulty we encountered.
It pretty much fell apart on it's own, because of [wait for it] ... drivers.
It was for fun mainly, and IT was fun.

Months later and unrelated (?), the site was hacked and so was I [seriously, and we have Macs]. Did we strike a nerve with someone?
Who knows.
I don't know, we'd all pretty much gone our own way and it was dead for many reasons.

As for these Blokes at Longhorn Reloaded, I'm wishing you "luck".
Really.
;-)

Well, I suppose "waste of effort" is subjective. You could be doing it just for fun and it's not really a waste of effort because you've done something you enjoyed and maybe learned something along the way. So "because I can" could be enough to make it worth while for someone.

I am astonished that nobody is saying "go for it", and it sounds like a interesting complement to Reactos or even Wine, but people should work on what *they* want to work on...its their time. The project is even replacing IE7 with a Firefox under the dubious name “Longzilla Explorer.”

Thanks a lot. "Longzilla Explorer" made my drink run out of my nose. That name is just... inherently funny to me.

I'm a huge fan of OS revival projects. I want to see potential in this, but the thing is, it's legally shoddy because it uses somebody else's work. Because of that, it's less likely to get anywhere until that changes. (And I seriously don't see Microsoft giving this project their blessing.) Developers would be unwilling to work on LR if their work goes nowhere thanks to a cease & desist order. Also, without access to Longhorn's code, only so much can be done.

Despite this, I think it would be pretty badass if they sit this on top of ReactOS (when/if both mature enough, of course).

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“We haven’t currently suffered any threats from Microsoft, maybe because Longhorn is considered abandonware, I don’t know,” Jemaho said. “Also I’m (not) a 100% sure that they are aware of the LHR (Longhorn Reloaded) situation. ”

When I asked Microsoft about the Longhorn Reloaded team’s efforts in October 2006, here is the response I received from a Microsoft spokeswoman:

“Microsoft actively encourages and supports independent developers to take advantage of the features available in our platform to create their own applications and services; however, the Windows end user licensing agreement does not allow users to modify and redistribute our code in this manner.”
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"Abandonware"?? They even use MS trademarks casually...:D Poor guys, they don't see it coming. Either they are incredibly naive or MS is somehow involved.

I concur, and would add that according to trademark law, Microsoft MUST come after them, while copyright law doesn't REQUIRE them to defend it legally.

Perhaps the only reason they've not gotten letters yet is because they simply didn't have enough readily found links for those that work for Microsoft in some manner to have stumbled across them, but there's little doubt they'll no longer be below Microsoft's radar with this amount of publicity.

If they have even one iota of wisdom (which their current situation indicates they don't) as soon as they get the cease and desist letter, they will abide by it. Otherwise, the longest part of the trial of this will be enumerating all they've done legally wrong, combined with the sentencing: it won't require anything on Microsoft's part to convince anyone how far these idiots have violated them.

Yes, I'm sure you know enough about the inner workings of Windows Vista to make that statement. Not.

Also, this project is a dead end. That Longhorn code base was extremely buggy and crash prone. Longhorn Revived will be DOA in my opinion. That is if it even arrives without the Microsoft lawyers tearing it to tiny little pieces.

>..And say that this is a supreme waste of effort that >will amount to nought in the long run. Even if they pull >it of, it will still have no future.

>It's a shame. There are lots of worthwhile open source >projects that could do with the manpower.

As much as you have the right to your opinion, I believe that in the open source movement we also have the right, with out prejudice, to work, within legal boundaries, on what ever we please. I believe that to be one of the greatest freedoms that the community has. I certainly don't work for anyone when I write open source software, what I do in my spare time is my decision, whether you approve of what I do is obsoletely none of your business. Are you suggesting we should all spend our time on what you think is important?

Reminds me of all those "Warped" people who couldn't accept that IBM had really dumped OS/2. The rationale was quite similar: Better to hang on to something "superior," even if it isn't supported by the original developer. In the end most of the OS/2 folks gravitated to Linux. Perhaps these LHR folks follow a similar course and become the next wave of rabid Penguin-huggers.

Reactos come on give me a break what they should have finished by now is the gui /drivers support and filesystem instead they prioritize that no-good bloatware like IE-integration.
They say it can be uninstalled but i had no luck with that.

This project seems to be manned by a bunch of stupid kids who have a rudimentary grasp of photoshop and want to reskin an outdated beta grade proprietary OS and maybe make some binary hacks along the way, the upshot of which is all going to be of questionable legality and certainly less than desirable, who would want to run a broken version of windows which never receives updates?

The idea that this manpower could be better used elsewhere is probably a little wide of the mark, as long as they're just messing around with this thing at least they aren't getting in the way on any serious projects, the world needs MS fanboi fundamentalists about as much as i need a hole in the head.

Is Joejoe some kind of skr1ptk1dd1e krčche?

Of course if they were making use of code which they actually had some rights to, reactos for instance, i'd be somewhat less dismissive.

they won't challenge this at all. They'll watch it carefully and allow the community to pour its ideas and efforts into producing a truly powerful Windows OS based on what the community wants. I've always said Windows should be free and that Microsoft should open-source it. Everyone knows that Windows server OS elements and the MS Office Suite are the real cash cows of Microsoft. Let the community develop the very best Windows ever! Microsoft's tired model of creating software slowly with a handful of paid developers cannot hope to compete with the open method of having armies of programmers working together. I'll be watching this closely. As a long time Linux user, perhaps if I do ever return to the Windows fold, it would only be to a community developed Windows OS.